The present invention disclosed herein relates to an electric shock protection device and a portable electronic device including the same, and more particularly, to an electric shock protection device for protecting a user from leakage current due to power, protecting an internal circuit from external electrostatic, and minimizing the attenuation of communication signals and delivering them, and a portable electronic device including the same.
Recent portable electronic devices employ housings of a metal material increasingly in order to improve the aesthetics and durability.
However, since such housings of a metal material have excellent electrical conductivity due to characteristics of a material, an electrical path may be formed between an external housing and a built-in circuit unit through a specific device or according to a portion. Especially, as a metal housing and a circuit unit forms a loop, when static electricity of a momentarily high voltage flows through a conductor such as a metal housing with a large external exposure area, this may damage a circuit unit such as IC and therefore, measures against this may be required.
On the other hand, such a portable electronic device typically charges its battery by using a charger. Such a charger rectifies external AC power into DC power and then again converts it into low DC power appropriate for a portable electronic device through a transformer. Herein, a Y-CAP configured with a capacitor is provided to both ends of a transformer in order to enhance the electrical insulation of the transformer.
However, if Y-CAP does not have a regular characteristic such as a non-genuine charger, DC power may not be sufficiently block by Y-CAP and furthermore, leakage current may occur by AC power. Additionally, such leakage current may be spread along the ground part of circuit.
Since such leakage current can be delivered to a human body contactable conductor such as an external case of a portable electronic device, this may provide discomfort painful feeling to a user and in severe cases, a user may get fatal injuries due to electric shock.
Accordingly, a portable electronic device such as a mobile phone employing a metal case may require an effective plan to protect a user from such leakage current.
Moreover, in such a way, a portable electronic device including a housing of a metal material includes a plurality of antennas by each function according to the multi-functionalization. At least part of antennas may be disposed at an external housing of a portable electronic device as a built-in antenna or a metal housing itself may be used as an antenna.
In such a case, an antenna and an internal circuit of a portable electronic device are required to be connected to each other and at this point, communication signals are required to be smoothly delivered to the internal circuit without attenuation.
However, as mentioned above, if a capacitance of a corresponding device is increased to effectively deliver communication signals, dielectric breakdown may be caused by external static electricity and accordingly, a corresponding device may be damaged.
Furthermore, as mentioned above, the implementation of a high breakdown voltage for blocking leakage current by external power and the implementation of a high-capacity capacitance for delivering communication signals may not be achieved due to their opposite effects. Accordingly, a scheme for protecting a user from static electricity, blocking leakage current, and implementing a high capacitance is required.